I was going to wait till I got some reviews to post the next chapter, but I got bored. So this is the next chapter, Celia finds meets her soon to be watcher and finds out what's going on.
Disclaimer: Blah , Blah, Blah, Does anyone actually read this thing anyway? Blah, Blah.
Shadowed Echo,
"Are you going to tell your mother and I what you were doing outside, and why you had the pressing need to leave through the window?" my father asks, though we both know that he isn't asking. He is demanding, there's an unsaid 'or else' at the end of his sentence.
"I went for a walk." I say. I know I'm in deep trouble, my mother isn't saying anything and my dad is exercising a cold fury.
"Out the window?" he asks incredulously. An idea comes to me, I'm going to fib my way out of this one.
"Well you see, it was getting really hot inside my room and I wanted to feel a cool breeze. So I opened the window and sat on the window sill." I pause looking at my parents to see if they're buying it. They're both listening to me, neither has interrupted yet. I take this as a good sign and continue my tall story.
"Then I fell off. I tried to get back up, but it was too high. So I tried to go in the front door, but it was locked. I forgot where the key is kept so I spent ages looking for it. I found it and came back in." I explain. Perfect story, yes! They should believe it.
"Why didn't you just knock on the door and ask us to let you in?" Mum asks this time. Flaw! Damn it, there's a flaw!
"Ahh, you know my pride, mum. I didn't want anyone to know I fell unless it was absolutely necessary." I explain getting the right note of hurt dignity in my voice. I glare at them, putting them on the defensive, feeling pretty smug about the way things were going.
"Alright, we believe you. Now go to bed." dad orders. They both leave and I fight the urge to do a victory dance. Celia Deuska fibs her way out of trouble yet again. I get changed into my Pyjamas and get ready for bed. Then I snuggle up under my covers so that they're just below my chin, and fall asleep.
I'm running down a cobbled street barefoot, and the stones cut into my feet. Something hard hanging at my waist is slapping into my thigh continually. Old fashioned buildings are on either side and I run past what appears to be a pub that has a practically antique style of music coming from it.
About a hundred metres away I spy a cathedral. A sense of relief runs through me and I instinctively run towards it. Something about the cathedral made me feel like it would be a great idea to be inside it, rather than running on the streets. My relief is short lived. A lady appears in front of me and I run into her. Her hair is long and dark, for some reason she has yellow eyes and a bumpy forehead. She's smiling menacingly.
I jump back a step and hit a man standing behind me. I am trapped between them! Fear, runs through my veins. I draw my sword and swing it in an arc, decapitating the lady. I turn as the man growls at me and I smell a coppery substance on his breath.
Quicker than I know is humanly possible his hand closes around my neck. My body lifts off the ground and I struggle wildly with unbelievable strength. I grip a pointy wooden object in my pocket. Then I lash out and bury it in his chest. With an unearthly scream his body disintegrates into dust and I collapse on the ground breathing hard.
Then I'm standing alone in a graveyard, by a mausoleum. The world is black, and I can barely see. The wind blows softly amongst the trees. I feel cold. The wind carries a singsong voice towards me.
"I'm coming for you, Celia. You cannot hide from me."
I sit up in bed panting and something is pinning my legs down. For an unreal moment I think it's one of those creatures from my dream, but no. My black cat is stretched out over my legs, yawning at me.
"I just had the most awesome dream." I tell her, still enthralled by the power I had in that dream. The end of it wasn't that nice though. I scrunch up my face trying to remember what happened. I was in a graveyard and I heard a voice say that it was coming for me and that I couldn't hide. Weird. "Move Charcoal." I order the cat. "Get off me Charckie." The cat doesn't move so I lift her up and drop her on the floor.
I arrive at school half an hour before it starts so I have plenty of time to talk to my friends. Ryan isn't there yet, but the other three are.
"Hi guys." I say to my friends. I can see that Sarah is looking ready to burst with some new bit of gossip she's longing to tell me.
"Hey Celia. Did you know that the school is getting a guidance counsellor?" she practically squeals. Sarah can get pretty excited when she knows something no one else does. This happens all too often as her mother is the president of the Parents and Community (P&C) meetings, and tells her what's going on before everyone else knows.
"No but I guess I'll find out all about it at the assembly this morning." I say almost laughing because I know I'll find out more about it now then will be said on assembly.
"It's true," Matt breaks in. "and she's a psychiatrist as well." Sarah looks a bit put out that he's stolen her story but nods enthusiastically anyway. I sit down on a table and relax as I'm told everything there is to know about the new member of our staff.
"Her name's Citra Nondas."
"She's British."
"She's hot." Says Matt. Sarah, Amy and I stare at him. "She is." He insists.
"She's blonde." Matt continues. "She's tanned, and she's got beautiful blue eyes."
"How do you know that?" I ask him curiously.
"You're looking at the new boy next door." He announces proudly. Amy and I share a look as we wonder what schemes he'll get up trying to make her fall for him.
I yawn. This is the most boring part of the whole school week. The monotones of our principal's speech, wash over the student body most of which is trying not to fall asleep, but I sit up straighter at his next announcement.
"Please welcome the newest member of our faculty, Citra Nondas." Scattered applause runs through the hall. "She's our new guidance counsellor but will also be the school psychiatrist." Citra steps up onto the dais and as the male population of the school get a good look at her the scattered applause turns to thunder.
Citra takes the microphone.
"Good morning everyone, as Mr. Buchanan told you I am the school guidance counsellor as well as being the psychiatrist. If you feel you need to talk to someone don't hesitate to go to my office in the library. I'll do what I can to help."
Again the applause rocks the roof as she goes and sits down, but as soon as the principal starts talking again everyone goes back to sleep. Assembly finishes without anything else worth noting and we all head off to class.
"Celia it's your turn." Amy tells me. Throughout the day Ms. Nondas has been talking to Gr. 9 about our dreams one on one. I'm of the opinion that she's doing it to bug us rather than to 'get to know us though our subconscious'. All the boys have been taking the chance to tell her about all their fantasies, so I have no doubt she's regretting the decision.
Amy went to talk to her straight after we finished the maths exam that I didn't study for. I know she would have been royally pissed if she'd missed any of bit of the test. It's currently Religion so I don't mind missing out on class time, considering the subject's entire lack of usefulness
"So your name is Celia Deuska?" Ms. Nondas affirms politely. She was sitting across the table from me on a blue leather couch. The room was surprisingly large for an office in the library. It was probably 'cause she wanted to make the students feel safe and homey. We were sitting in the main area which was full of couches, but there was a whole other section for a private office.
"Yeah." I say ignoring all the rules of manners I've been taught. For some reason the British lady just bugs me.
"Ahh, and what have you been dreaming about?" she asks. I decide to tell her about my weird dream last night. Maybe she'll say that I have violent dreams and that it's a reflection of my character or something.
"Last night I dreamt that I was running down a street barefoot and was attacked by two demons which looked kind of human, and I destroyed them." I state flatly.
Her eyes light up and she leans forward in her chair excitedly.
"Did they turn into dust when you killed them?" she questions me eagerly.
"Yes." I confirm slowly wondering how she knows that. Ms. Nondas looks like she's going to jump up and down and do the hula.
"And what weapons did you use? A cross maybe, a sword or a stake?" she asks impatiently. I'm starting to get annoyed.
"No! I waved a magic wand and they blew up!" I growl at her. I feel like ripping her head off or sinking my teeth into her neck. The guidance counsellor looks faintly amused as she corrects me.
"You're making that up. It's not what happened." She states calmly. "I daresay you would have staked one, or maybe set it on fire or cut its head off. Your dream wouldn't have been set in the modern days either, perhaps the medieval ages?"
I stand up and send my chair flying backwards. "How do you know that?" I yell. "It was my dream! You weren't there, so how do you know!" Ms. Nondas is looking scared as my temper sends my face a bright red colour.
"Let me tell you a story." She says. I can tell she wants to explain, and is semi-apologetic for her actions. I decide to give her another chance and sit down on the chair again.
"A long time ago this world was ruled by demons. It was a world of fire and volcanoes, where very little that was mortal could survive. No one quite knows what happened, but the demons started disappearing to another world. The last pure blood demon on the earth mixed its blood with a human's.
"This human lost its soul, became very powerful with a never ending thirst for blood. It was the first vampire. It could age at will and use small amounts of telepathic power. The vampire then bit humans and shared its blood with them, making more vampires until the world was overrun with them.
"Evil gained the upper hand on the earth so a fighter for good was created. One girl in all the world with the strength to hunt down the vampires, and stop the spread of their evil. A vampire slayer. She didn't last long before she was killed.
"After she died another vampire slayer was called, and some humans who dabbled in the arcane helped her train to defeat evil. These humans formed the watcher's council. Every time one slayer dies another is called and a watcher is assigned to train her.
"Around a decade earlier the slayer died but was brought back by CPR. She had died so another slayer was called and then there were two. Then not so long ago both slayers died at the same time, and one slayer was called. The watcher's council sent out people to find the new slayer.
"Each new slayer would dream of previous slayer's lives. Killing vampires, demons and being killed themselves. Can you see where I'm going with this?" Ms. Nondas asks me. Her story shook me but I'm not going to let her see that.
"Yeah. You should make that story into a movie or TV. show. Lots of people would watch it, I'm sure." I joke.
She looks disappointed somewhat. "You're the slayer Celia, and I'm your watcher sent to train you."
"Ha ha ha ha ha. No." I say. I'm starting to get scared. What she was saying had an uncanny ring of truth about it, and that really frightens me. I like my life. I like it just the way it is. I don't want to spend my time fighting the forces of darkness, I want to go to the movies with my friends and be nasty to all the people that annoy me.
I remember the dream and the feeling of supreme power killing those vampires gave me. Maybe I should give it a shot, just to see what it's like and if I hate it I won't do it again.
"What do I have to do?" I ask.
I'm standing in a graveyard holding a pointy bit of wood in my right hand. Ms. Nondas is sitting on a headstone filing her nails and occasionally glancing at her watch.
"Should be rising any second now." She says for the fifth time that night. My doubts about the whole stupid idea of vampires existing are returning full force, and I realise the idiocy of my situation. I'm standing in a graveyard with the school guidance counsellor/psychiatrist, waiting for vampires to attack me.
"You know what?" I tell her. "I'm going home now before my parents chuck a fit. You can save the world from vampires by yourself." I chuck the stake at her and stalk out of the graveyard. I can hear her yelling obscenities after me, but I don't care.
I reach the gate and jump over it, conveniently forgetting the fact that normal humans can't jump over gates that are nearly two metres high. If I realised that, I would have known that it proved Ms. Nondas right, that I'm the slayer, therefore proving vampires exist, and oh, I've just given up my only weapon.
A dark figure materialises in front of me. His face has ridged brows and long fangs jut out of his mouth. Yellow eyes stare at me as he lunges at me and attempts to bite my neck. Oh damn. Ms. Nondas is right. What am I going to do!
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